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Draconids meteor shower peaks on October 7th / 8th, 2016

The annual Draconids meteor shower peaks this year during the night of October 7th / 8th. Although a feeble shower it does have a history of spectacular outbursts and for that reason it's certainly worth looking out for. The best place and time to observe is from northern locations during the evenings of October 7th and 8th. For this year's event the waxing crescent / first quarter Moon will have set by midnight and therefore won't interfere with early morning observing. However, it will somewhat interfere during early evening.

The Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) of a meteor shower is the number of meteors a single observer would see in one hour under a clear dark sky if the radiant of the shower were at the zenith. Usually the ZHR of the Draconids is extremely low at only 1 or 2 meteors, even below the sporadic rate. However the shower can burst into life and on occasion's as many as 6,000 meteors per hour have been seen over short periods. When the Dragon roars it's a spectacular sight!

Parent Comet

The dust and debris left behind from periodic comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner as it orbits the Sun are the source powering the Draconids meteor shower. Comet Giacobini-Zinner is a short period comet with an orbital period of just 6.6 years. It was discovered on the December 20, 1900 in Nice by French astronomer Michel Giacobini and was subsequently lost and then re-discovered two orbits later on the October 23, 1913 by German astronomer Ernst Zinner at the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Bavaria.

During apparitions, Giacobini-Zinner can reach 8th magnitude in brightness although it's known to flare. For example, in 1946 it brightened significantly to reach 5th magnitude and therefore within naked eye brightness. It will be next in our vicinity in September 2018.

Previous observations

Historically, great Draconids storms have occurred in 1933 and 1946. In 1933 observers recorded an hourly rate of 6,000 meteors over a short period. Most meteors were slow moving and faint (between 3rd and 5th magnitude). Likewise a similar storm occurred in 1946 when many thousands of meteors were seen. On both occasions the activity was short, lasting only about 3 hours in total. Lesser but noteworthy outbursts occurred in 1952, 1985, and 1998, with lower rates but still of the order of hundreds of meteors an hour. The last bursts of activity occurred in 2011 where European observers saw over 600 meteors per hour despite an almost full Moon and in 2012 where radar observations detected up to 1000 meteors per hour.

Radiant

The Draconids radiant is located in the faint far northern constellation of Draco the Dragon, not far from the famous constellation of Ursa Major and the bright star Vega (α Lyr - mag. 0.0). To locate the correct region of sky, look to the northwest in early evening. With a radiant of +54 degrees this is essentially a Northern Hemisphere shower.

For those located at southern latitudes the Draconids radiant is either very low down or never even climbs above the horizon. This considerably reduces the number of potential meteors, although it's possible to spot a few coming up from the northern horizon.

To catch as many Draconids as possible the best advice is to find a dark observing site with an unobstructed view of the sky. Then scan a large area of sky surrounding the radiant but not directly at the radiant. The reason is that even though the meteors originate from the radiant they can appear many tens of degrees from it.

Nobody is predicting anything spectacular for 2016 but you can never be certain with this shower. There is always uncertainty associated with the Draconids, more likely a complete washout but a spectacular storm may happen. It's therefore worth watching on the nights of October 7th and 8th as you may just witness a spectacular celestial event.